Two more beams lept from Jiira’s eyes while he was slammed against the back wall, taking Lith by surprise. Both rays struck at Lith’s heart with enough strength to bounce him off the floor, filling it with cracks, and then crash against the metal door.
Jiira had used pure mana to attack, giving the beams the same energy that a speeding truck would have in exchange for a lack of any piercing ability. The results were nothing to scoff at. Jiira had clearly heard the human’s bones shatter not only when he had been hit by the beams, but also every time Lith had struck a hard surface.
The small pool of blood forming under Lith’s head was a clear sign of how deadly the Odi’s aim had been. Jiira could sense the enemy’s life force fading, so he focused on the Body-Swapping device to make sure that it had sustained no damage.
A snapping sound was all that warned him of the impending danger. Somehow, the Ranger was inside the God’s Will array again, with his silver clawed hand aimed at Jiira’s brain.
The Odi stepped back, once again emitting energy beams from both his eyes and hands, but being now aware of Jiira’s abilities, this time Lith was fast enough to crouch and dodge them.
Once he was closed in enough on Jiira, Lith used his hands to deflect the opponent’s to the side while simultaneously jamming his head into the Odi’s chin, sending all of the mana rays against either the floor or the ceiling.
Jiira’s rage exploded when he tasted his own blood invading his mouth. Not even during the great war had he ever been harmed to such extent by any opponent. Two more beams, this time made from the fire element erupted from his open palms, striking Lith’s head and heart respectively.
Jiira could now see the reason why his opponent had managed to survive this far. A split second before the impact, Lith’s whole body was covered by Orichalcum, which had absorbed part of the impact.
The two new rays were strong enough to push the metal liquid aside and reach their target. Even though their trajectory had been deflected by the Skinwalker armor’s energy field, a smell of barbeque spread throughout the room as half of Lith’s face evaporated.
The blood from his wounds generated a spray of red fog while his body crashed against the metal door again before sprawling on the ground
< "Stay down, dammit!"> Jiira said, while unleashing several bullets of darkness magic to destroy the enemy corpse.
Much to his surprise, the corpse wasn’t a corpse. A simple wave of Lith’s hand deflected the bullets. Out of habit, Jiira had used first magic again, but outside the God’s Will array, the dark projectiles had returned to just being a very powerful cantrip.
Lith’s body floated in mid-air allowing him to stand up, also revealing the flesh and muscles of his face regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye, until no trace of the wound was left.
< "That's impossible! Humans cannot have achieved an immortal body before the Odi!"> Jiira refused to believe his own eyes. He knew about the existence of Awakened ones, but he had no idea what exactly their powers were.
Hence, he wasn’t aware that each time Lith was about to be struck, instead of tensing up and clenching his teeth, he simply took a deep breath with Invigoration. That would cause the healing process to start even before a wound could be opened.
The destructive power of each energy beam had been greatly reduced because Lith’s tissues and bones healed so fast that the beams had to damage each layer of his body multiple times before managing to go deeper.
Jiira wasn’t a Golem. With each second of his stupor, he allowed Lith who was insensitive to pain thanks to darkness fusion to breathe regularly.
With every breath, his body healed. With every breath, his strength returned.
A snap of Lith’s fingers made all of the chains restraining the prisoners open in unison, plunging the room into chaos. No one cared about how Lith had done it, the only thing they wanted was to get out of there.
“Well, you only need to shoot beams from your mouth, nipples, and crotch to have the complete set.” Lith said.
He was usually deaf to the rantings of his enemies. Talking was just a waste of breath that would only encourage more babbling. Lith was a firm believer that during a fight less was more.
Unless of course, he needed to buy some time. Only in such a case would he indulge the madness of his opponents. Like now, when he was waiting for Solus to return to his side.
The first time Lith had stepped inside the green array, he had made sure that the enemy was unaware of her existence and incapable of detecting her despite her half-artifact nature.
The second time, Solus had exploited the moment after the leg sweep to reach the prisoners unnoticed and spread her body between the chains before activating Zolgrish’s Eraser.
The impression of a multiple Clean Slate spell being cast from a distance was what Lith needed to reinforce the enemy’s shock and buy even more time.
“Quylla, follow my hand!” He said handing her the book about the Mana Reactor opened at the right page, while a trail of fire and darkness resembling a human hand flew through the air leading her toward Morok.
When Lith had arrived, Quylla had hoped to be able to fight by his side, but the two clashes she had just witnessed were more than enough to make her understand that whatever the Odi was, it was beyond her capabilities.
The idea of leaving her friend to fight alone against an ancient horror while her sister was still strapped to the stone table made her clench her teeth so hard that for a moment she thought they would break.
Quylla didn’t raise any questions nor objections, she just took the book and followed the mystical hand’s trail, ignoring everything else.
Meanwhile, in the adjacent room, Ranger Eari was giving his all to damage the Mana Reactor, but to no avail. Not only was its metal exterior extremely sturdy, but also it seemed to weaken and absorb all the mana that came in contact with it.
Even destroying the protruding mana crystals had turned out to be quite hard and so far, it didn’t seem to have caused any significant damage. It didn’t matter if he used tier four or five spells, the best he had achieved was to leave bumps and scratches.
“Fuck! This is just a waste of time. Since I can’t go any further below, I might as well go see what’s on the upper floor.” He said, right before the door in front of him opened.
Morok had just enough time to revert to his human form and hold back the spell he was about to unleash, thinking that the newcomers were once again Golems. The soldiers and Assistants were all so scared that none of them noticed the small figure of the Ranger near the Mana Reactor.
Quylla kept running, following the mystical hand that was pointing to the door leading to the upper floor. She had seen the Reactor, the picture on the page that Lith had handed her, and the door.
It was enough for her to do the math. Morok followed her, hoping to receive good news.
“Has Lith won already?” He asked.
“No, but if we don’t destroy this thing, we’ll all end up as spare parts.” She replied while heavily panting. If not for the adrenaline rush, she would barely be able to stand, let alone think clearly.
